There a sparrow's body lies
by Kuro Guardian
Summary: A flock of darkness against a purely white sky - "Tell me honey... Tell me how you sleep."


Fingers in your hair and you wish there existed a sky above you. Wish because you'll never know - never see it. Figuratively, metaphorically, literally you are blind the kunai bright as it descends. His lips are rough chapped like those of a little boy who has stayed out in the chill of autumn. He was almost your height with eyes that looked through you. He doesn't love you, he never has.

Fingers broken you try to will your eyesight to return as he does something you can't ignore. You need to see his face - need to see misplaced eyes more gold then blue, more red then black. Instead you rake your fingers across his face dismissing the starbursts of pain in the hopes that you've left more scars. In your mind's eye you see him licking off the blood with a cat's tongue eyes narrowed with amusement. You see him smirking and you hear Them.

You're blind you tell yourself and he's nowhere near good enough. Those damnable eyes can't possibly reach you in the dark; his mind is too feeble. He laughs the sky a perfect white overhead. Like a plague the birds sit upon everything, so dense they appear a shivering cloak of day. A billion eyes as cool and black as his study you - you are found wanting. Three crosses hang behind you and - "Neji?" He smiles as cocky as ever and you wonder how you thought Lee could ever replace him.

He destroys you a hundred years ago in Kohona the stadium packed with a thousand, thousand sky-black birds. Leaves you bleeding and half-blind as he stares down at you in disgust. And you hear him as you have everyday since he disappeared - "you're not a loser like me". You hear him say things you'll never really understand, but all you hear is how he is a dead-last loser, a complete failure and something inside you weeps. Wept because he'd never love you now, but you didn't know that mattered then. He watches you watch this and you wonder what it's all for, but you know that's why you took this mission.

The birds twitter. His eyes shadowed are a grip around your throat and there are a thousand crosses filled with the carnage you've left behind. And what feels like a thousand years ago you murder the heart of your clan. There wasn't even a need to attack her again as her eyes rolled back and she died. You watched the system fail, the heart stop beating in her bird egg chest. It's not when the chakra shutters away like a broken prayer wheel stopping that you realize what you've done. It's watching Hanabi's face and seeing her not give a damn the tiniest glint of victory in her eyes. It wasn't seeing him swear with the nobility of a king razing his own kingdom her blood and his dripping from his hand. Even later with her foot on your chest and her malice digging through your skull it wasn't him swearing to make you pay that gave you pause.

Ignorant you ignored him - _and he snatches your head back one hand in your hair as he rams into you _- but then he swore a lot of things back then. He swore he'd be Hokage, swore he'd protect his precious people, swore to bring Sasuke back - to save his best friend - to kill his brother. Breathing through the swollen mess of your face as you swallow his seed and your own blood you try not to think of how many of these things have come to pass. More importantly you try not to think of how many of these things have turned to lies. With the taste of your own shit in your mouth you allow yourself to edge toward unconsciousness. Instead you waver on your feet seeing the white sky above and the sextillion birds waiting for the signal to tear you apart. He grins mischievous as always.

He leaves you at the edge of town with a head in your lap. You shudder to think of whose it is. Or maybe you shudder because you're cold and in shock. Should because you though he loved you but really… "Two birds at two o'clock…" Really it was just that his cock sat like a rod of white hot steel between his thighs. _how you loved his thighs and the way his tongue up yours_ hurting him with an unwanted need. _White fingers on your father's face the long purple tongue. _You are just a warm, damp place to put it. _The chapped lips of an angry little boy._ The knowledge is nearly enough to break you so tell me Neji how will you sleep?

The birds are flying burdened with the shiny piece of your fractured soul and psyche. The sound is - _a hundred birds screaming as Lee's chest explodes_ - so far beyond your powers of description that you're _terrified at the way his lips move without sound _simply enthralled. _And she laid in your bed like a gift spoilt her brown thighs bloodied her eyes gone. _He stands behind you his lips to your ear," Tell me now - how do you sleep?" _Gai-sensei laid at the foot of the memorial, laid at Kakashi's feet and he is __**so**__ quiet despite the way he refuses to stop breathing._ The birds turn the sky to black with the raven-like wings darker then an Uchiha's eyes. "How will you sleep now? Tell me please." Tsuande studies your eyes fingers gentle on your face. "Neji?" 'Have the birds stopped screaming?' _Lee's chest is made of blood._ "Neji - can you hear me?" 'And have you stopped screaming yet?' "No."


End file.
